The Reunion Special

Hey! Are you listening? Good. Now that we have your attention, welcome to... Drumroll, please. The Snap! A podcast by me, your host, Katie. And me, your host, Ainsley. Just two girls in their 20s here to bring you a female-centric girl math tone to the Bitcoin, Noster, and value-for-value music space. As artists living in Nashville, we got tired of screaming into the void and tiptoeing around a broken music industry. Looking for a new way forward, we came across this space.

And thought, why not give it a try? In this podcast, we'll deconstruct what traditional success in the music industry has looked like so far. How that definition is changing. And where the space comes in. We'll break down all of the big happenings in both the music and Bitcoin worlds, how they mix. We'll fangirl over our favorite music in the value-verse, as well as prop up amazing voices that have yet to be heard. We're so glad you're here. So let's get to it.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Whoa. welcome one welcome all to what i think we're calling the snap season two baby we're back did you miss us y'all did right i think you guys absolutely missed us also as we're doing this i think we should give the people what they want let's take a selfie that we can post on master later oh i look terrible me too so i'm gonna post that on my nostril and you guys can see what we did what we looked like in the moment that we are recording this you guys are so welcome

yeah you guys are so welcome sorry my hair is like slicked back and you can really see this in the headphones um but you're really gonna enjoy it i mean we've been all over the place everywhere except for nashville i mean i was in europe for a little bit which was really nice i with my family and we went to Spain, Scotland, Italy, and it was really nice. Like I haven't spent that much time with my parents since I lived with them in high school. Yeah. So

that was also a little interesting bit. Yes. But you've also been all over the place. Yes. I was in a lot of different places. I have to take a minute and think about it. Okay.

so I guess I'm not going to count Philly which was in April because we were there together so since then I have had shows in Vegas Portland Seattle New York I was in Florida but I didn't play a show that was just visiting family and then I did my first radio tour and that took me to Chattanooga Memphis and Jonesboro so you've been everywhere truly it was a wild ride and I feel like this is only the second or third week that I've like really fully been back in Nashville

and we were talking before we started recording we're like we we are we are due for a chill fall yes in many ways oh my gosh I'm like I would just like some time to plan yes like recoup recoup kind of get things back in the schedule like I am a girl that has ADHD but loves a schedule like I want to know where I'm going I want to be busy yeah but at the same time I need to have a plan for that yes and so I feel like fall is definitely that time to kind of take a step back

drink your coffee make your soup a little bit cold see I can go with the flow but when does the flow start right right when does the flow start I just want to know yeah just give me an estimated what's what's the weather like what do I need to wear what do I need to pack for the flow That's who I need to plan for. Truly. And that is the life of two girlies who live and die by the calendar. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Can I tell you one of my traveling finds that I found out about myself this summer?

You called it. I love an Aperol Spritz. I hate margaritas and I love an Aperol Spritz. margaritas are definitely yow um yow um as somebody who's gotten drunk off of margaritas before that headache in the morning uh-huh sucks yeah that headache in the morning you wonder where you are what time it is what planet you're on and then you go and throw up and you're like whoa whoa i had um a couple weeks ago So I had a pineapple in tequila or a pineapple in some sort of alcohol a couple weeks ago.

And it wasn't, I don't think I was fully, I was hungover. But like an hour or so after I had that, I was like, ooh, I have a headache. Oh, I don't, I feel nauseous. And I had one drink. It was, but then again, I am built like a twig. I am approximately two feet tall. So I think any sip of alcohol is going to just like throw me like sugar we're going down. Well, yeah. And tequila is different from the majority of our other alcohols because tequila is an upper. What does that mean?

The majority of alcohols are downers, meaning that when you drink it, you're going to get a little bit sad. You're going to get a little bit tired. You're going to get a little bit. I want to go home. Yeah. Or you're getting drunk and you're not really thinking about it, but you're going to have a crash at some point.

okay tequila is not a downer she's a party girl tequila is like your Adderall of alcohol okay I did not know this but that makes sense yeah tequila is an upper therefore very sugary therefore massive headache yeah um so you're not gonna feel it when you're drinking it like in college I was drinking tequila because you can go out and have a few tequila shots and you feel great you feel on top of the world that alcohol in your system you are invincible your body is

rubber until until it isn't right but until you have that headache that said if you were drinking vodka at the same time you would still be getting the same amount of drunk uh-huh but you're just a little bit slower like you're just a little bit more tired yeah um tequila just kind of takes that out of the picture it just really follows up on the back end yes so it's just that you're willing to sacrifice yeah oh my gosh so the first time I tried a margarita we were in Vegas

for the Bitcoin conference shout out everybody who was at the Bitcoin conference um I just heard some sort of weird sound effect and katie took her starbucks drink and like knocked the volume pedal down with it i was like be gone um so it was the first time that i had a margarita was in vegas at the luxor after um so i was there i was in vegas for two back-to-back conferences tequila in vegas that's that's a wild ride that's a journey that is unlike any other

yeah um so i was there i was in vegas for two back-to-back conferences one for the licensing expo and then of course the bitcoin conference was the week after and it like worked out perfectly that that's how it happened because it had fun great two weeks in vegas but i do have to say two weeks in vegas is two weeks too many in vegas we had a great time it was a great experience but it's vegas and i will leave it at that but it was like the the first night um that i was at the

licensing expo and my mom and I went to go get food at one of the many, many restaurants inside the gargantuan pyramid that is the Luxor, which also as a girl who Egypt was my special interest, ancient Egypt and the mummification process in ancient Egypt was my special interest as an elementary school child. It was incredible. I loved staying in the Luxor for a week. It was amazing. Did you know that their elevators go at a diagonal?

It was wild. Abel James and I had a conversation about how trippy it was. It was wild. Was Abel James sober? Because that conversation. Abel, I'm going to need a response. No, I had that conversation. It's like on a plaque in the elevators in the Luxor that because it's a pyramid and it's designed in a way that the elevators can't go directly up. They go at a diagonal because you get assigned an elevator based on where your room is. So I think we were at the red elevators or something.

And so they go like diagonally to the right. And so then the yellow elevators will go diagonally to the right on that side of the pyramid. So it just, I'm not an architect. It's wild. And I'm just trying to talk about my margarita experience in the first place. Okay, so. I'm so confused. Wait, I'm just still confused about these elevators. I am too. Wait, wait, just one question and then we can move on. Yes, of course. So when you're in the elevator. Yes. Do you feel like you're going diagonal?

Yes, it's weird. So it's not the normal, I guess, gravity momentum that you feel when you're going up. You feel it, but you get jerked to the sideways a little bit. Wait, okay, okay, okay, okay.

now I'm kind of seeing this so diagonal I'm thinking about it as like you're starting from a outer point of this pyramid and then going to the top diagonal yeah so or are we going diagonal as in like if you're looking at the face like one of these faces you're going diagonal across from like the bottom to the other side diagonal that one okay I think that makes more sense yeah so if say if you're like if you're at the bottom also I'm directionally challenged so this is kind of

hard for me to explain if you are at the bottom left corner of one of the the um the sides of the luxor and you get in to go to your room you're going at a diagonal to like the top right technically so okay if you're listening and you're like me and so this diagonal is not going towards the center of the pyramid it's going across the pyramid it's going across the pyramid okay i'm sure that there are that makes way more sense it's a it's a well-known like biggest fact of how trippy

the the luxor elevators are i'm sure that there's an article or a youtube video on it somewhere there's got to be right yeah um so it was wild abel james and i had a conversation about how wacky the elevators are um and so okay back to the margaritas though um circling back circling

back so we are inside the luxor um we're at we're at um one of the mexican restaurants that are just in there because my mom and I were like yeah let's do Mexican food that sounds good um and the guy who's like the manager he's like can I we I mean I look like Pepto personified I'm branded I've been walking around this conference all day like you can spot me from a mile away I'm in pink and orange I'm sparkly um and he's like okay this girl clearly just turned 21 and he was so like

can I be the first person to give you your first margarita and my mom was with me and she was like given this guy the side eye the whole time so then he proceeded she was a little bit like what's going on here do you think so the guy brings me the first you're trying to hit on my

daughter yes um so he brings me the first margarita which is just I guess a typical traditional margarita um and then he proceeds to ask me he like oh I not going to be offended if you don like it yada yada yada And he says oh well do you like cucumbers And I said, yeah, I like cucumbers. I like the actual food, and then I like the flavor of the cucumbers. He said, can I bring you a different margarita? He brings me, like, two free margaritas. And I hate both of them. I'm so sorry.

It was nasty disgusto. Disgusting as the vine says Disgusting And then he proceeded to like Do a card trick in front of The two of us like he wouldn't leave After the margaritas You really got your biggest experience Oh truly and he was like He was like trying to guess a lucky number And he was like I'm getting three And then he looks at my mom and goes So I'm guessing dad's still in the picture Right So I don't remember what his name was

but I'm going to call him Jerry. Jerry, if you're listening to this, thank you for that really weird experience having two margaritas, two of my first margaritas in the Luxor at Vegas. She says it was disgusting, but thank you. Thank you anyways. And so, yeah, that was in Vegas. And then a month and a half later, I had an Aperol Spritz when I went to visit my hometown of Seattle, Washington, and my life was forever changed. My life was forever changed. Yes. And then I had

another one the next night and it was great the night that that night so it was the night that we were dropping off um Eli and Jackson at the airport because we were coming off of doing the show in Portland and then my like big hometown show um in Tacoma at the Spanish Ballroom which was just like amazing it was one of my favorite shows I've ever done it was such an emotional night um and so then two days later um me and one of my best friends Sydney we got got to spend the

day together like hadn't seen each other in five years and so like we went out shopping we spent the fourth of july together so that's the day that it was um and so we spent the day together we went out shopping we got ice cream all the things and then we met back up with my parents because my parents love her and we were like we want to catch up with her too um and so we met up at mcminimins which is actually where the spanish ballroom is it's like a really cool hangout spot it's a hotel

it's a music venue it's like very cool venue um and so sydney and i walk up to the mcminimins and this guy who's walking out he's like oh do you guys are you guys going to the secret bar and we're like secret bar what do you mean and I've been to McMinimins many times when I lived there and I had not heard of the secret bar and so we were like no tell us where the secret bar is because also we're both 21 now we were like oh my gosh we've known each other since we were living let's

get drinks together because this would be cool so we go to the secret bar and it's cool it's a fun experience I had like an Earl Grey martini and I thought I would have liked it but it was gin um so that was a little bit of a bummer Sydney loved mine though um and then we stayed the rest of the night and we watched the fireworks together and I was like you know what I would love though an Aperol Spritz and then she got a gin and tonic so we got blasted hammered no we didn't

we had we had two drinks and we're very responsible yeah two drinks yes and the first night that I tried the Aperol Spritz um we were all getting dinner before we dropped Eli and Jackson off at the airport. My mom took a sip of it and she thought it was disgusting. And she was like, there's no way you're finishing that. And I said, watch me. And I finished it. And Eli and Jackson cheered me on. And that's the kind of bandmates that I need. They were not pressuring me to get

drunk. They were just like, that was impressive that you did that. It was responsible. It was one drink. And I really liked it. And that was a lot of me ranting and yapping about alcohol. So Katie, what about you? What did you have any fun alcohol experiences on your trip?

So, speaking of gin, so my dad and I, we buttheads. You know, I'm an only child. I was the son he never had. And essentially, we haven't spent a lot of time together since I was in high school. Like, I haven't spent more than probably a month with my parents, less than that, since I started college. Yeah. Like, it's kind of part of... Like, back-to-back consecutive time with them. Yeah. I mean, it's part of growing up and kind of, you know, leaving home, which sucks.

But essentially, all that's to say, my parents had planned this really long trip in Europe.

and I you know found out and I was like hey so what are the odds of me being able to go with you guys and they were like well if you can get the time off and I was like sold sold I don't care I'll quit my job yeah are you kidding me buy a restaurant I work at a dive bar see you guys later wouldn't want to be a literally like I will find a different job when I get back I'm going and so we go uh-huh and one of the places that we went was scotland and i historically do not like

mind you my entire family and i have watched outlander and that was one of the main reasons that we wanted to go to scotland katie sent me this awesome picture of her um in scotland behind prison park yeah yeah and i was like new profile picture unlocked for real or locked in yeah so i so all i say it's gotland we i had this gin that i really liked and i historically hate gin so me being me i'm in a different country this is the first time that i have ever been in

a different country and i have legally been able to drink that said every other country if you can see over the bar you can drink so i was drinking in these other countries but anyways so i liked this gin and i was like dad i'm of legal age i can buy this i'm a grown adult woman and bring this back to america because i really like this gin yeah and my dad being the practical man that he is goes katie you're not gonna carry around a bottle of alcohol in your suitcase for the next

two weeks so oh and i was like but i'm a grown adult so we we got into it a little bit uh-huh um my mom was laughing at us she was like you guys are ridiculous you're really gonna argue over gin right now she was just like eating popcorn in the corner no she well so mind you we get into this argument like as we're walking back from dinner uh-huh and where was the gin was it at the restaurant or was it at a store it was at the restaurant okay so i and he and the guy told me

there's a liquor store down the street that you can get it so i was like i already have all the information i need to go and get this gym like i say no more like i have all the information i have the brand i have the price and so we're walking back and i go to walk in there and yeah he just was not having it stomps back to his room i stomp back to my room i get a text from my mom it's like if you guys are done being stupid i'm in the bar go sandy yeah she's like if you guys

are done like with your little hissy fit i'm in the bar if you want to come hang out and so i went and hung out with my mother and my dad was still stubborn like if if anybody wonders where i get my stubbornness from um yeah so it was brewing you know we're both very stubborn people and we haven't spent that much time together in a very long time so the funniest thing to me was not that we argued I could have seen that coming from a mile away of course yeah it was just over

gin really that's that's the thing that you're gonna like stick your foot down like really so then my follow-up question is did you end up getting the gin did you end up bringing the gin home so so after after coming to terms with the practicality that my dad was saying okay maybe dad you might be a little bit right a harsh reality the harsh reality that maybe he has some merit to what he's saying i go i'll just buy it when i get back to america i look when we get back to

america of how much money this gin is it's like 150 bucks to get it sent from scotland is that usd or the scotland how much was it how much would it have been if you bought it in scotland 25 oh no 25 so i'm like dad look here buddy yeah it was 20 if you would let me get it there it would have been 25 bucks yeah but because now i have to get it while we're here you have to buy that for me that's your problem i don't make the rules and i expect it by christmas thank you very

much you're paying 20 interest on this gin more than that yeah and i mean all of this is a good fun right like they took me on this amazing trip of course and this it was a combination of

granted we just got to this hotel that there was a whole thing like when you book this hotel on the website like the name of it was like palace something like it was super fancy was it like an old castle that they had converted well okay not an old castle like it was just a really old building on the river super pretty like you look at it and you're like oh my gosh i'm so excited i'm gonna stay in this like medieval castle vibe and we like walk in and get to the desk and they

go hey so we have a bus full of people in here that have booked up all of the rooms in this building but but but but we have a building that's right next door that we've just went ahead and put you in you can't put in the outhouse no so the guest house i should say yeah so we walk across street yeah and you get in the hotel rooms and it's not like it's not bad it's not like thirst bugs i'm not worried about cleanliness i'm not worried about that type of thing

it's just one of those i was expecting to stay here and i've paid for staying here yes and you've Put me right over here. And I haven't paid for staying here. And it's like way worse. Did they give you like a refund for, did they refund like, okay, you expected to pay to stay over here. So then we'll take, you know, 50, 100 bucks off of this. Nope. Okay. Fine print. Oh. It was one of those. It was like, well, we can't really do anything. So what do you expect us to do?

And my mom, granted, you don't want to mess with the lawyer, Sandra. No, of course not. She's scary. She's scary. So she went and walked herself up to this little desk and somehow walked away with a different room. So that's her. In the original hotel? No, still not in the original hotel. Okay. But it was still in this building right beside the hotel.

Okay The staples But it was a better room Were you guys all in one room or did you guys get multiple rooms We got two rooms in that one Like this mind you this is one where like my mom splurged and got two rooms so that I could have my own room and it was in a nice place That's a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. So this is on the heels of finding all of that out and then going to dinner. So mind you, then we've also traveled. Like we've driven like four or five hours that day. Oh, yep. So on top of that.

Everyone's on edge. We're hungry. We're tired. And we've been traveling for three and a half weeks already. Yes. So it's, yeah, it was just a whole lot of things at the same time. And it really just came down to my gin. Yeah. So what was the flavor palette of this gin? It was just a raspberry gin. Like there was nothing super incredibly special about it. Like, it was just the first gin that I was like, oh, my gosh, I actually really like this. This doesn't taste like leaves. Uh-huh.

What else happened? So, in Scotland, on that same, like, trip, right, as we leave there, we go and stay at this other hotel. No, this hotel, this was a very nice hotel.

Okay. this was in edinburgh and this was the hotel that um jk rowling wrote the last harry potter book in whoa like it was so cool so like i'm walking around like oh my god if everybody at my dive bar could see me now uh-huh yeah so we get to this very nice hotel and we're walking around and this is after okay my dad my mom volunteered my dad to drive in scotland not asking my dad if he wanted to drive in scotland on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car

different brakes gears different everything actually questioned about that real quick because i have always wondered about this so you know how in america when you're driving on the left side of the car the gas is on the left and the brakes are on the right is it the same over there yes okay it's the same pedal wise and like everything else it's just that the steering legal and that whole driver's side is just on the opposite side okay because I've always wondered

if the mechanics were a little different okay um yeah my my dad had said that he was like if if the pedals were different that would just be an absolute no yeah like no way um so we get to this very nice hotel and by the time we get there like my dad has he's an anxious man okay why why my mom volunteered my 65 year old dad to drive in scotland i still i and mind you my dad killed it absolutely killed it smashed it did an amazing job but why why would you do that um

So part of this to having the rental car, we, as we're staying at this very nice hotel, there's like a tea service and there's like this whole tour thing that we have lined up. But my mom has had it in her head that we're going to go and see all these different castles. Like everywhere across the country, we are seeing stone. Stone castles, built, history, all the things. Lollabrock.

Rock. Yes. so igneous formation we are going to go see history god damn it yeah we americans are gonna go learn so so we're driving and we go and see this castle very underwhelming and on the way there we see the oh lollibroch from outlander so we go and see that beautiful awesome and then we can't find this other castle or driving around for like 20 minutes can't find this castle finally find the castle walk around again very underwhelming because at

this point it was like just rock you know what i mean like there wasn't really anything inside to see like you're looking at it cool castle cool we've seen it yeah thank you next thank you next like awesome so then as we're driving back mind you we're driving back because we have a tea appointment that's at like two and like hours yeah hours and then we have a tour like an underground walking tour ghost tour oh yeah and so driving back we're driving along this like kind of dirt

ish road and we take this turn and my dad absolutely nails this rock like he didn't just hit it he hit it and and all you hear is like a what did the car get scraped scratched did the car didn't get scratched the tire just got obliterated oh no oh was this when you were telling me that you guys got stranded on the side of the road for like five hours so suffice to say so yeah um so then we were stuck and at this point it's like four hours

before this he is supposed to start and i am willing to bet that triple a is just not waiting to come and get you in scotland no okay uh-huh we call the rental company and it's not triple a It's double A. It's double A in Scotland. Okay. I don't know. Down a battery size. Right. Where did the third one go? But we don't know. So it takes a few hours for them to get there. At this point, we've missed the tour. My dad is beside himself. He's like, I've ruined this entire trip.

I can't believe that I got a flat tire and we were going to do all these things. And I'm like, dad, it's okay. And when you're traveling for that long, something is going to go wrong. Right. And also, I can very much empathize with him as a fellow anxious person and an even more anxious driver, if that is. Yeah. Well, and you're driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car. Yes. Like, all things considered, a flat tire is not the worst of our issues. No. Absolutely not.

No. And also, a little caveat in there. I was not bothered that we had four or five hours to just chill on the side of the road because at that current moment I was reading a book that had been very much recommended to me very highly recommended that I had pushed back reading for a very long time because I was like if it's so hyped it's not that good yes I was reading fourth wing okay so I was perfectly fine

Oh, I'm sure. To be chilling for four or five hours on the side of the road. So you liked Fourth Wing. I loved, I ate through those books. Okay, so I haven't read it. And they have, they, as the Book Talk community, which I'm very much a part of, has since said that the last two books aren't great. What did you feel about the overall series? Because it's a trilogy, right? So it's not finished yet. Okay. The third, I think there's supposed to be like five or six.

in the series oh okay so yeah it's about halfway through yeah um and the third book was definitely confusing like not okay not confusing but like there were some more plot holes that i think she's gonna write in the fourth book to make make sense okay but it's like reading i i would assume it would be like reading like throne of glass or a court of thorns and roses yeah as it's coming out yeah because there's so many different cliffhangers that if you hadn't read like I ate through a

quarter of those oh absolutely if I was reading that series as it was coming out I would have not been the person to be around yeah because it's there's so many intricacies that happen within the span of one book and so then you have to wait a year and a half two years for it to come out which is how we're all feeling about ACOTAR 6 literally I don't remember anything that's gonna happen but i know that i am teen elucian thank you and good night no literally yeah i

there's a lot there's a lot to be said for fourth wing or just reading series that are unfinished because i want to say that she's gonna quote unquote like redeem herself in the fourth book because i can understand where the third book just had a few different plot holes that didn't exactly make sense and that left on a cliffhanger and then stuff happened in it that you didn't think that would happen and then like it's just one of those too much stuff happened okay too much

stuff happened too many things have not been explained what's going on did you write it that way to be confusing and you didn't think about it or did you write it that way because there's a fourth book that's going to explain it i think it's because there's going to be a fourth book to explain it yeah but people haven't liked how it went about that plot line of the third book yeah so i can understand that uh-huh and i don't necessarily disagree but

i honestly save save yourself uh heartbreak trauma and agony of waiting just wait for the fourth book to come out honestly and then start reading it all right because it is one of those like i put it up next to a quarter thorns roses okay like and my cat is named after pharaoh like You know this. I do. The Curse Breaker. It is one of my favorite series.

Wow. Okay. So that's interesting to hear because one of my cousins texted me, who's a big reader, and she had the polar opposite response about Fourth Wing. She hated it. She was like, Ainsley, it's so bad. I don't remember what we were talking about. I was telling her that I had read a popular book that everybody was overhyping, and I thought it was going to be great, and then I really hated it. I don't remember what book I was talking about.

But she was like, oh, are you talking about Fourth Wing? And I was like, no, I have not read Fourth Wing. And she very much did not like it. So what is the truth, Ellen? I don't know. I don't know if she just read the first one or she read the whole series. Fourth Wing, and some people might come at me for this, I think is kind of written a lot like The Selection. Which is one of my favorite books. I reread that series earlier this year. because it's one of just my most favorite.

Like it's one of the series that got me into reading. It just holds so much nostalgia for me. That was like the book series that me and all three of my girlfriends in middle school, we all loved it. We were all always talking about it. So, okay. I was waiting for those books to come out. Like I remember waiting for those. Have you read the Matched series? No. I feel like we've talked about this before. You might've talked about this, but it's okay. I'm down to talk about it again.

I feel like you would really like that series. Okay. It's kind of a similar premise. like matched married type thing. For those of you who don't know, the selection is 35 girls.

It's the Royal bachelor, 35 girls competing for the heart of the crown prince of Ailea, who is just to this day, my book boyfriend He set the bar Max and Calyx Shreve where you at yeah no definitely for sure there yeah i loved those books there there are some of like i could probably recite some of those chapters word for word break my heart break it a thousand times if you like it was only ever yours to break anyways as he's laying dying under the table i tell you i ride for this series

hardcore oh yeah so matched is kind of similar it's still in like that dystopian set in the future vibe um except it's a little bit more like hunger games ish okay kind of there yeah um but it's really good it's kind of how america it's essentially how america would be if china turned it over or china took over and kind of created the capital essentially oh and then how people would live in that capital and how the new world would kind of go and like you're matched to

your biological best match to have children okay cool and in this book she's accidentally like quote-unquote matched with two people we love we love why i love triangle so so she's matched with two people and doesn't know which one is the correct match and so it's kind of about like the system and that like dismantlement a little bit yeah um super cool really good i read it around the same time as the selection um trying to think of other ones that are kind of in that realm

spark that series never read that one um still like i was in my like sci-fi romance yeah dystopian dystopian all of it loved the hunger games divergent like that kind of realm of thing yeah uh spark like that one is a little bit more like they're on spaceships vibe okay essentially like um have you heard of the 100 or i was just thinking that yeah so it's kind of like that show where they sent people up into these two ships that are going to essentially an earth equivalent

okay um and after the the world has just been probably destroyed after the world has been destroyed okay these are the two ships that are saving humanity okay and it's about those ships how it works the different like humanity elements of it and like how do we keep on having babies whoa you're the first baby that hasn't seen earth that was born here that's crazy like kind of that type of thing um really cool yeah on that note i this summer for me this is gonna sound so weird

this was the summer of the handmaid's tale for me oh my gosh I watched this show for the first time

and I just finished it yet I finished reading the book um last week for the first time I borrowed it from my aunt who I saw um when I we were going um through DC a couple weeks ago and first of all that book is not talking about like all the the crazy story plots it is such a good book yeah it is have you read the book yes I had to read it for school um but I read it yeah um and there's there there's a series to it right like there's a few of them yeah so one of the things that I

think is super interesting I haven't read the second one yet so the first book came out in the 80s and then the second book the testaments I think it's called came out in 2019 so like 30 years later and it's from I think it's from um not from the main character in um the book's perspective um it's from one of the aunt's perspective and then another girl who grew up in Gileadian society I thought the book was so interesting I really think it's cool how we

you don't for sure know what her name her actual name is in the book that's something that the show differs a little bit they kind of are like okay this these are one of the names that are kind of given to you in that first chapter this is what we're going to go by um that I thought was really interesting I thought that it was really interesting um I have the book the copy that I borrowed from my aunt um is I think it's one of like the first published copies like it's a super

old copy like the pages are yellowed and so it has this Q&A with um Margaret Atwood at the end of it and she said she wrote it in a way that purposefully put the reader in the dark because it wouldn't be fair that the reader knew what was going on in Gilead if the main character didn't know because part of the terror is that you don't know what the system is you don't know what's going on you see what's going on on the outside and you see how unfair and unjust it is and also right now is an

interesting time to read that book for the first time for a lot of different reasons um and also So I thought the end part was so cool. The mini bonus chapter at the end where it's like a society 150 years in the future and they are looking back on. Do you remember that? No, I didn't read that. So I don't know. Maybe it was just in this first copy or one of the first published copies.

But at the end of it, there is this chapter given from the perspective of a college professor who is giving a lecture on Gileadian society. and they are talking about this book, this text that they have found called The Handmaid's Tale. And they're talking about how like the all the insight that this book gives them into the society. And it was just so interesting. It's so cool. As a work of literature, that's a good writer.

That's such a good writer. Just as a work of literature. Oh, my gosh, it's incredible. But the story points in and of themselves are terrifying because when she wrote it originally, it was satire.

it was supposed to be this kind of like oh this could never happen so extreme so far in the future this could never happen and look at where we are there are um have you seen the videos in the past couple of months popping up of like um people dressing up in handmaid's tale garb following around conservative lawmakers being like hey this is the future you're making it's wild it is so crazy

The black sword swings through the night Search for you Just to be no better to do Don't lie for me You drove me to the field that day The smell of oil in my glove Told me I couldn't You watched the world It grew and grew And grew In love of the only answer In love an only night's stone Shoot, I'll wait for a call to end I'll wait for a light to descend Please come true All is well, it ends well And how does it end?

All is well, it ends well So don't lose your life All is well, it ends well And how will it end?

All is well, all is well Just don't lose your heart Don't kiss the mouth or the river I'm full of bounty that comes I'll know where to find you Hold me like you used to I'm a cascade of ideas we dance ceaselessly No progress couldn't kill you Into the night without you In love the only answer In love the lonely nightstone Shoot, I'll wait for a cough to end I'll wait for a light to descend And please come true All this world, it ends well And how does it end?

All this world, it ends well Stop losing your mind All is well, it ends well All is well, not well, it ends All is well, it ends Just don't lose your love I'm a casket of ideas we dance ceaselessly And I know where to find you so that's my rant it's no no no it's totally crazy i mean because it's more than a cautionary

tale at this point it's like this is we already have the makings of this and a couple years in the future we could have something very similar to this i okay as a person who lives by their self uses the tv as background noise yeah i i eat through shows like i can go through shows so fast Not because I'm like truly watching it, but because I'm cleaning, I'm cooking, I'm... scheduling things but being in a place by yourself I want some noise yeah totally and sometimes like

music like I want something to watch as well that I can kind of look up and do something so I'll put on a podcast or whatever all of that's to say I eat through shows like I watch shows like it's nobody's business I forget shows that I've watched yeah because of how many shows I watch or have I watched The Handmaid's Tale I started in October of last year, November of last year and I was watching it during the election cycle. That was freaky. That was terrifying. Never would recommend that.

But I still haven't finished it. I'm in the last season because it's a show that I definitely want to make time to actually like watch but it's it's a hard show it's a hard show like you I take breaks like I will watch one or two episodes and then I'll come back to it like a week later yeah like and kind of take it in chunks because they're at one point like the early seasons you could watch like the first season kind of back to back not like casually but it's more of a it's not as heavy and

dense like because towards the end of it you're like you everything is culminating and you know everything and it's like oh like this is just heavy yeah but you it's it's like a need to watch like yeah I don't want to watch it this is like but I need to finish it my like duty as a woman today yeah watch this and the show is hard for a couple of different reasons because and the show was very well done like yeah I would say that as a work of fiction and as a work of art I would say

it's probably one of my favorite shows and I understand what it means to say that because it's a really hard subject matter and I think for a lot of women for a lot of reasons it hits really close to home for me it hits really close to home but the show is hard because it it some scenes in the book are kind of a fade to black where it implies what happens the show like takes you into those hard moments and also the thing that I thought is interesting about the show the book

really only covers the first season like there is so much that is embellished upon yeah which I think is cool and I think they did a really great job with it and I think Margaret Atwood was a producer on the show for most of it so which I think is indicative of she was down with the things that they were right kind of like she she was there to say yes this isn't within the realm yeah of what would actually be happening which is cool i mean all in all like i think it's interesting how

media has portrayed like i'll be watching certain shows now i can tell if it was made in the early 2020s or if it was made in the 2018 2019 yeah because half of the shit that's said and shows about like the different jokes about women dating multiple men or the different jokes about sexualizing people or kind of like the funny jokes about immigrants or like that type of funny jokes meaning like immigrants we get that shit done you know what i mean Yeah, from Hamilton. From Hamilton.

Like, that type of, like, there was just this lightness to comedy.

Yeah. And now people are tiptoeing around what they can and can't say to the nth degree. And in shows, like, I mean, there was stuff talking about, like, the president and, oh, yeah, fuck that man, blah, blah, blah. Could you imagine if somebody released a show right now that had, oh, yeah, and fuck the president. Oh, they'd be put on the watch list. Oh, my God. They would be that show would be canceled or like something something to that effect. Look at what just happened to Stephen Colbert.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it would it would be known. Yeah. so it's crazy that we now live in a day and age that you and i can look at the most recent past and see insane differences and like shit that would not fly today right for many many reasons well and i mean there's a pendulum yeah right so as soon as we start to swing more woke then we will start to swing more conservative and you see that swing because now it's starting to be a little bit more acceptable to make

sexualized jokes about women it's a little bit more acceptable to say the r word it's a little bit more acceptable to say the f word it's a little bit more acceptable to kind of poke fun at certain things now socially yeah that's terrifying guys oh my god is going on especially Only when we're waking up. Mayday, mayday, mayday, mayday. Mayday, which is part of the thing in Handmaid's Tale. That's like mayday is their word for their resistance that's going on.

And one of the things that I thought was interesting when I read the book in the show, it's like, okay, mayday is just the name of the underground rebellion operation that's working to get people out of Gilead, yada, yada, yada. Mayday as in like the military term or mayday as in first of May. In the book, I thought it was interesting that they said, oh, it actually derives from the French translation of help me, which is Mayday.

And as somebody who's not to be, but I'm learning French on Duolingo. And I just hit my two year streak, which just and I don't mean to be mansplaining. But if you put an M at the beginning of A day, which is just means literally means help me, which I thought was really cool and a nice touch.

But yeah, absolutely terrifying, especially when the headline that at least I woke up to this morning is that the president is revoking secret service for the former vice president, Kamala Harris, which is. What? He's revoking her protection. Did you see that? No, I didn't see that. It's like in especially when at the end of his presidency, Joe Biden was like considering the the circumstances around.

Kamala Harris's election run and her losing the election, we should up her security because of the time that we live in and the conversation that we were just having about how it's more socially acceptable to be a little bit like pushy with the things that we're talking about and the things that we're joking about. And so Joe Biden knew that she would need more protection just because of who she is.

And then the president today is like, no, I'm taking away her protection, her detail, like who are looking out for active threats, who are providing her with 24 seven protection. It's evil. It's so evil. And there are so many other things that have happened just in the political landscape since you and I have talked that are like is a whole other thing we could get into.

there's when I see headlines like that I mean the first jump is oh my god fuck you the second jump is is this just another taco taxation meaning taco as in when he would tank the stocks up and down because he would say oh we're gonna put tariffs on this blah blah blah and then tank the stock so that him and his little crannies could go in and buy it like that to me whenever i see a headline like that i'm like is

this just another look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me so that you don't look over here yeah i'm sure like to distract from all of the ice raids that have continued to happen from all of the underground, like how somebody, one of the states asked the Supreme Court for gay marriage to be revoked. What? Terrifying. So I knew that that was going to happen. Oh, of course. As soon as Roe got overturned. Got overturned.

Yeah. Because for those that don't know, Roe was a precedent law. Or a precedent, not president, but you know what I mean. meaning that Roe was the law that overfell V. Hodges, that I'm blanking, school versus Brown of education, like those type of cases were all based off of Roe.

Now, when you get rid of Roe, the precedent that's keeping all of these little things in place, as soon as you get rid of that one it's a free-for-all because then any lawyer in america can go in and say hey so the precedent for this case law no longer exists i would like to take this to our court like i know that i'm not saying this correctly but i would like to take this to somebody to get this overturned as well because now the precedent is gone oh and that's basically

what the woman who asked the supreme court to overturn gay marriage said she was like i just don't want this to happen it's right oh my god like um gay marriage um and the one that i was blanking on was is overfell v hodges that's gay marriage or is overfell v hodges interracial marriage because i know that both are being challenged right now let's look um oh v hodges is nope same-sex couples a landmark decision of the united states supreme court

which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples. So the same-sex couples over Pell-Ve Hodges and interracial marriage, which was... I'm blanking on that case. But both of those were under the precedent of Roe. Yeah. So... Hey, Mr. J.D. Vance.

you and your wife are no longer legally married like the hypocrisy of some of these people and with jd vance and his wife i look at them and i'm like she's she is a smart woman what is going on here what the actual hell is going on here what yeah that's what that's all i can say literally so oh and also uh um how trump is like all about immigrants and he married an immigrant he married multiple immigrants yeah so and you oh just this is yeah i want to say like we should laugh but

because if we don't we should cry but also like we are two privileged white girls at like who are kind of just dissecting this whole thing like this is real shit that's happening to real people and it's heartbreaking and it's terrifying and we have a platform and we should use it and so this is just awful and i think we both took a break from our normal day-to-day programming yeah and

came back and went what did i miss and we met with oh shit we start with light let catch up on travel and now we land at the uh the landscape of american politics which is a shit show right now well and i think for both of us like this podcast especially too like is about talking about the new things that are going on in bitcoin as well as the new things that are going on in the music world as well as books we're reading yeah and this

is kind of a hodgepodge of all things put together yeah and in the first season we really focused on music and bitcoin and all of the new things that are happening within fountain and toonster and nostor and all those different things and i think on the second season we're going to be focusing in on that as well but i think we're also going to be talking a little bit more about ourselves yeah i think so too and gotta branch out yeah branching out and also

let us know your feedback like yeah absolutely if you really like the yapping about bitcoin and you don't want to know my middle name okay cool let me know that like okay cool yeah absolutely um but one of the things I guess to kind of bring it back to music which is like the way that we met each other and we have originally connected that I wrote this down a couple months ago to

talk about this because it happened I think in June when both of us were in the midst of traveling and because it goes hand in hand with what we were just talking about about the political landscape can we talk about the Hamilton Tony's performance yes so I think the biggest thing to start with is it was the 10-year anniversary performance but the entire cast was dressed in black except for the king the king what do you think let's let's use our thinking brains and

And let's just brainstorm about what we think that is meant to symbolize. Because one thing about Lin-Manuel Miranda is he is on that Easter egg level. We are going to do immense symbolism. That was entirely intentional. Entirely intentional. And I think that is using your platform for good. I think that is using art to really, really say something. And I thought it was incredible. And especially because Hamilton is just so nostalgic for me.

just watching that whole thing it was so the entire performance was so good and I like started crying when the Skylar sisters walked on stage I was like and what I would say to that is I think it got received the same way that Kendrick's halftime show got received yeah very mixed reviews like I think it's interesting because when you hear the discourse of that like oh it was great no it was shitty like it's so subjective like art is very subjective yeah absolutely that way but I think it's

interesting of like who sees it who doesn't why what how did you get there and what I've seen it interpreted as is like the cast is dressed in all black because it's the funeral for democracy yeah we're absolutely mourning and the king is dressed in a red blazer because he is ruling and current America the ruling class the president is a Republican historically red so I think it could also be symbolism for how

we were just saying a minute ago the current president's strategy is to do this all this look at me look at me look at me that bright red is going to draw your attention that's kind of to take away from all of this other stuff that's going on so then when quote the king walks on stage that's the only thing we're looking at to distract from all of this other good and bad stuff that's happening and the other little piece that i saw in there the king didn't say any words

he was babbling nonsense babbling nonsense yeah the king that was babbling nonsense like oh yeah i think that's the that's the title of this episode babbling nonsense Like there's definitely. Yeah. Like you can look at it and see that. And I don't, I don't know how somebody could look at that and be like, yeah, they were just all black because it was a performance. Cool. Then like, move on. They're going for the aesthetic. Right. Like, okay.

Yeah. Um, kind of speaking to the revolution won't be televised.

Yeah. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy. So. I think that certain people are going to keep on making these statements. And I think it'll be interesting to see where we go and how that all culminates. Yeah. I think it'll be interesting to like the Sydney Sweeney ad. Oh, yeah. How that went down. The Matt Rife ad. For Elf. How that went down. Oh, my God. Like so many things are kind of tied together. Yeah. The tides are changing.

And I don't know if anybody really knows if it's for better or for worse right now. Because I think we can always say things like it's always darkest before the dawn. Things have to get worse before they get better. Calm before the storm. Calm before the storm. And so it's a matter of time. I mean, it's really cool to see how a lot of people are, a lot of politicians are not just bowing down and being like, okay, this is how it is.

Like how Gavin Newsom is doing that special election in California, which is like, yeah. Redistricting, yeah. That was very interesting. I've been seeing that. I mean, having all the different Texas politicians having to leave their state. Yeah. What? And I mean, also, like, we can't sit here and talk about, like, yesterday we had the first school shooting of the year, which is heartbreaking. And we are protecting the Second Amendment over second graders.

I opened my phone yesterday morning to the photo of the woman running barefoot and just bawled. Honestly. Yeah. Like, just because you can, like, and I'm going to get emotional talking about it now. Yeah. Because you can see her literally taking her shoes off and running towards the school. Like, that photo is just so powerful. Like, I think we'll post it at some point, like, putting it up on this episode.

Yeah. But if you haven't seen that photo of the mom running, like, taking her flats off and running to the school, you should see it.

Yeah. it's one of those like it stays with you yeah i will forever remember that are you kidding me yeah um yeah it definitely stays with you um it's not something that's going away it's not something that's going to change unless people in the position to change it do it yeah and nobody's gonna do it unless we vote for it yeah so using your voice is incredibly important and using your vote is as important or more yeah I mean when people say I didn't vote that was a

vote for Trump when people said oh I voted for a third party candidate that was a vote for Trump and I think we are one of the things that I was thinking about a lot this summer when we had our our break, um, in the podcast where we weren't recording was just kind of a behind the scenes thing. Um, when Katie and I were recording the first, um, season of this, it was, I think, uncharted territory for both of us. There were a couple of episodes that we redid because of this

entire conversation of how we were talking about earlier. Oh, people are taking things way too

literally. I don't know if this is a, I know we were saying this and some people will understand this and other people won't like there are a couple of things in me just as a very anxious person I was like we need to redo some stuff and not even because I think we said anything wrong just because that's the time that we are living in and I was definitely really anxious of saying something wrong we talked about this in one of the episodes in the first season of like

I am so afraid to say something wrong because cancel culture is a real thing but one of the things that I was thinking about a lot during this break was like we have a platform it might be really small and I have always been like I've grown up in this like Dolly Parton mindset of like remain diplomatic and like don't say anything but like we are not in a time for diplomacy diplomacy has been thrown out the window yeah and if you want to say the past couple of months if

you want to say the past couple of years, if you want to say the past decade. And I think that I'm just at a point now where I'm like, fuck it. I want to talk about things that matter. And I want to draw a line in the sand on a lot of these things and just say, this is not okay. And because I've, I've been really disappointed in a lot of the, the people who I've looked up to throughout

the course of my life. We're in a time right now where people aren't saying anything and people who have the most amount of power could turn the tide with a single Instagram post, a caption, or I mean, and also I think a lot of this, that's a nuanced conversation too about like, oh, well do people in, in positions of who are musicians or actors, do they owe us that? That's subjective. I think everybody's going to have a different opinion on that, but

I think we have a platform. It might be small, but I'm like, you know what? This isn't okay.

what is happening today and I don't really want to remain diplomatic I the people who know me know what I believe in and they know what I stand for and I think that the whole world should know that too yeah I mean I think it's very powerful to say this is what I believe in and this is why and I'm gonna stand by that yeah um I think right now especially is very important because birds of a feather flock together, right? Mm-hmm. So unless you make yourself identifiable, what are you going to do?

Yeah. So also standing up for what's right. Yeah. Hey, Disney Channel princesses over here. Mm-hmm. Like, that's what we were raised on, guys. Yeah. What do you expect? Yeah. When you raise a generation on the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games. Divergent.

standing against oppressive regimes and then we sit back and don't do or say or just raise any awareness about it part of me wonders if somebody knew and that's why this well not okay and that sounds a very conspiracy theorist but like somebody knew as in historians people 20 30 years ago could see how the tide was turning and where it was going and that influenced a current like state of events that these people then wrote in and then that's where we get all of this like coming out of

the end of the world and blah blah blah and that's why we have this and then this generation reads all of that and then that's where we get this from like if you track it back there's a cause and an action and a reaction And I think it just interesting how all of this is happening And we were the generation that read all of that and that learned all of that Yeah. And then you're turning around and going, wait, why are you doing that? Huh? Yeah. I wonder.

Hmm. And so I think now would be a good time to say, I mean, I think we said this in one of our first episodes, but we're back for season two. If this is the first time reiterating, Just reiterating, if this is the first time that you are listening to the Snap, we want to be a safe space for people of color. We want to be a safe space for the LGBTQIA folks.

We want to be a safe space for just any marginalized community because also we know that in the Noster Bitcoin space, which is kind of primarily where we focus and advertise this podcast, there's definitely a certain type of person who I think is affiliated with that kind with the Nostra Bitcoin world and we're trying to change that like we think that that is a technology that can be helpful for everybody and we want to say hey normal people are here too hey people who

believe x y and z are here too yeah and yeah we haven't taken the red pill or the blue pill yet guys yeah i know that's a thing from the matrix but i've never seen the matrix honestly i haven't seen it either yeah yeah we're rolling

Let this pass It's never worth The tears we know They don't ever last Memories can harm We should have known back then You and your tongue like dagger And I with my poison pen Play to our strengths Let's give it time Just leave it be Losing the wrong We soon shall see You could win the hour But you might lose the day You're better off walking away Your coast is Cuts through me into distances I never knew there I'm privy to view that only you can paint

Beautiful canvas you have protected so I won't taint I'm tired with my brush So let's give it time And just leave it be Who's in the run we soon shall see You could win the odds You might lose the day You're better off walking away Yeah You're casting out blastery heal me in those obvious gains of everything you are not a God and I am not your thing Do it whatever you please So let's give it time, just leave it be Who's in the run we soon shall see You could win the hour

But you might lose the day You're better off walking away You're better off walking away You're better off walking away Hold on. I want to see if there's any, um, oh my gosh, hold on. Can I tell you,

I was telling Katie before we started doing this, like we haven't seen each other for basically like two and a half months. I had a running list of things that I wanted to talk about. Um,

not just for this episode, just for like the upcoming season and whatnot. Um, I'm telling you this now because the next time I see you I'm gonna have my hair done this is so random you can track our friendship by the growth of my hair right now that's so funny because Katie the day that we met was the last time I got my hair done really yes we met in October of last year I my friend Madison did my hair and so like not the pink and the tinsel but like how grown out like

my actual darker blonde is that's how you can track our friendship right now that's so and so when I see you next Saturday that's gonna be gone along with our friendship no right right right out the window no it's so funny because of your hair I was in your bathroom earlier yeah and I you know do my business look up and I see like hair tinsel everywhere I was like kidsly has been here yes no and I have my my tinsel hung up like I think a 19th century butcher would have me hung

up in their, in their warehouse, like in my bathroom, in my bathroom, because tinsel is hard to manage. For those of you who haven't had the great honor of dealing with putting tinsel in your hair all the time. Um, you can't, once it's out of the package, you can't just like shove it back in because it's going to get tangled and then you can't use it. So I have it like just dangling from

a rod in my bathroom and it gets everywhere. That's how you can tell that Ainsley's been somewhere when there's just strands of tinsel breadcrumbs I do your personal breadcrumbs I'm sure and I'm sure that uh Katie's gonna be moving to a new house in a couple weeks I'm sure when you're cleaning your house you're gonna find some of my hair tinsel oh my god yeah I'm sure you've already found the person moving in after me is gonna be finding hair tinsel yeah yeah no I made

a tick tock a long time ago about um there was this sound it was just like oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god and it was pov you live with ainsley and it's just pans to tinsel in every corner of this household and it's all different colors too because i've done so many different pictures and photo shoots there was purple tinsel there was blue tinsel i mean everybody knows by now that my signature color is pink thank you very much but there was pink there was blue there was

purple there was green tinsel for a song that i did one time so yeah see i my vibe is like not the tinsel i could see myself doing like not like manufactured like ainsley like put through the ringer no katie you are i love your brand it's a lot more like i would say like green purple yeah like kind of that vibe and a lot more like i could see myself putting like feathers in my hair maybe that's cool doing that yeah like as you as you took your your break this year were you

thinking more about like how you want to brand the artist of katherine oh yeah i mean it's something it's a tricky thing that every artist has to deal with because you need to be able to separate yourself but you don't want to like pigeonhole yourself too much you know you don't want to be known for one specific thing entirely like taylor swift has her red lips yeah eyeliner tate mccray has her like very short short the body suit type thing in the jersey

Yeah, in the Jersey. Sabrina Carpenter has her very sparkly heart suit. Like, yeah, everybody has their own little stick. Yeah. And trying to find that while not being too like kitschy has been a little bit hard. Yeah, definitely.

and I think kind of what I've come to is I'm just gonna do the very classic like roller curls oh love and then like the bodycon dresses and go for like old vintage and hope for the best I love that no I think one time I don't remember if I told you this or not but um it was after after one show that you did that I was um that I was lucky enough to witness my my dad and I were talking about it afterwards because my dad has played piano for katie on a couple of different

occasions he is insane on the keys shout out jim as we're sitting in jim's man cave um we were talking we were like you know what i feel like because i think another thing that artists are always trying to do is trying to almost give themselves a new genre that can kind of just be their own we were like katie's evening gown pop yeah which i was like that i feel like and take it or leave it i was just like to me that is exactly what katie is and i love that yeah and and i kind

of like that too like it's very much like i want people to be able to come to the show and feel like they've seen a show yeah absolutely i love the aspect of having jazz musicians yeah and really showcasing what those musicians can do and like because i think a lot of it is when you a singer and when you like the quote unquote front man of the band you can let that go to your head and you kind of become the yeah, well, I'm the musician that is kind of communicating with the crowd.

And I think it's really nice to take a step back and let your musicians like showcase themselves.

and like i always love like the little um yeah and introducing my band like you know kind of doing that um but i want to play around with that even more because there was there was a show that i saw that i will always remember i love this band um stoplight observations yes and and you've heard me talk about this show it was definitely one of those that i wouldn't go as far as like changed my life but it definitely changed my perception of how a live show could go yeah because that's how

I felt when I saw the band Camino for the first time like yeah you kind of you look at it and you go oh I see that makes sense I could totally do that what are they doing that I can replicate right what are they doing that I could do which this band had like it was like an eight-piece band it was it was hefty and all of it was mainly like jazz r&b almost electronic like it was really cool different than i had really seen and all of them it was just a free-for-all like yeah i listened

to their music after and it sounded a tiny bit different a little bit the same but essentially what he would do is start the song and then kind of go with it and like sing through the song and then he would pass it to the drummer yeah and literally walk off stage tea he would walk off stage go get a bottle of water and the drummer would then like pass it to the guitarist yeah and

the guitarist would just be like chilling and then the guitarist would pass it to the keys yeah and like when i say pass it i'm meaning these musicians don't have any sheet music in front of them don't know what key well they do know what key they're playing it but like don't know what key it could possibly change to yeah absolutely they don't know who's doing what they don't know what key or no is coming up and they're just looking at each other basing off they're basing

what they're doing off of watching somebody else do what they're doing yeah it's insane there is insanely talented things like yeah there's this thing everybody always says that music is a different language and it absolutely is but I would even venture to say that there are sub languages within the language of music there's definitely the written if you can read sheet music that is amazing but then there's also this telekinetic thing that happens when you're on stage

when you can't even really say music is so live music is just at the risk of sounding cheese and cornball live music is magical yeah there is something there is something to live music that you just like when you nail it it is magic one of the best feelings in the world one of the best feelings in the world and it's not even like the applause factor of it yeah it's the fact that you practice this for so long you tried for so long before you even practiced it to get it to

sound right melodically before that you tried for months to get it to sound right lyrically yep before that something had to happen for you to experience that for you to write about that it's this culmination of so many different things so and it happens in three minutes and you can almost liken it to you know that argument where everybody says um it's not really even an argument it's kind of just fact at this point that everybody says it is truly a miracle that every

Do you know how many things had to happen for you to be here as an alive person on this planet? Like the big bang had to happen. And then, you know, two leaves had to touch a million years ago. And then your parents like locked eyes on the subway 20 years ago. And bam, here you are. I think the same thing can happen for writing songs. Like, okay, you learned to write songs when you were 12. And then, oh, you learned how to play an instrument.

And then, oh, you learned how to write songs based off of this artist style and this artist style. And then you spent five years like writing shit songs to write one great one. And then, oh, here's this one thing that only you know how to like really write about in a way that makes sense and connects to a wider audience. And music is magical. And I had this moment. I had a couple moments when we got back that I was like, you know what? Music is fucking hard.

It's fucking hard to chase this all the time. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to do it. I always want to keep doing this. I just chose to be stubborn and choose a hard thing to do for my career. We could have had an easier run if we said, you know what? I want to be a bank teller and I'm going to be set forever. But no, we decided to challenge ourselves. And I'm not saying that bank tellers don't challenge themselves. Shout out to our bank tellers who are listening.

But well, there's yeah, there's a lot to be said for that. And I have this conversation with Jake pretty much every time we record. Jake, as y'all know and love, is my producer. Awesome guy. He made our podcast intro. He did. Which maybe now that we're in season two, maybe we should make a new one. I think we should. Okay. And I think we will go back to the studio. That'll be fun. Rad. Let's do it.

Continue. And Jake and I will always talk about this, where we'll start a song and I'll get like the first verse a pre-chorus and maybe a chorus and i kind of like it don't love it don't have a second verse and we'll just kind of leave it because jake and i will hit this point where

we will 100 overwork a song oh yeah like you you get to that point where i've done the first verse and I know that the lyrics make sense but uh we've repeated this second verse for what seems like an eternity and I still have nothing like I still there there is genuinely nothing coming to mind so then we'll stop and we'll stop with that song and pick up a different one or one that we haven't finished otherwise and it's always unorganized and it makes me very unanxious like

very anxious that I have 10 songs that are halfway done, five songs that are three quarters of the way done, two songs that are fully mixed and mastered, and then five songs that just need to be mastered. Yep. Like, it's annoying to have so many different things in so many different places. Yeah. But Jake always has to remind me, he's like, the best songs that we've done that we both like the most are ones that we've been quote unquote working on for months because we started

the beat in February. I wrote a chorus to it in March. I wrote a verse to it in April and I just

got the second verse down right before I left. So now we have the whole song, but I don't like how the chorus feeds in because now that I have the second verse and the pre-chorus in there, the chorus doesn't make sense so now it's take it's taken like six months for this song to actually come together but it's my favorite song because i wouldn't have had those lyrics if i didn't have the first lyrics there before or if i didn't have the first chorus there before i

put this new chorus in like it wouldn't be the song that it was if i didn't truly take the time and take the painstaking, weird, ugly, very annoying, anxious thing to work with and just do it. Great songs. A lot of great songs take time to marinate. Like one of the things sometimes when I get down about myself, about my artistic capabilities or my songwriting capabilities, one of the things that I'm like, well, I don't write songs in 20 minutes. And that's great. Some

of the best songs ever have been written in 20 minutes. Nobody can argue with that, but not every song is written in 20 minutes. Not every great song is written in 20 minutes. I'm sure there are so many people who can claim, oh, well, I've written six songs in a day and I wrote all of them in 20 minutes and they're all terrible. Right. Like they're not just, just, just because of how to be winners, girlfriend. Yes. Just because of how fast you wrote something does

not equate to it being the faster you write something doesn't mean that it's better. And the slower you write something doesn't mean that it's better. The creative process, like the finished product is so subjective. When I'm writing with other people, I can get a song finished in three hours. But when I write songs by myself, it takes me a couple of weeks to just write one song because I have the chorus idea first. And then I write that for a little bit.

There's this one song that I wrote a couple of days before the U.S. election. So take that what you will. I wrote it at a very interesting time. I wrote it a couple of days before the U.S. election And I wrote it a couple of days after I finished reading Throne of Glass for the first time. So that's a lot of interesting subjects that are kind of ruminating in my mind.

And if you don't know what Throne of Glass is, it's basically the fantasy version of all those books that we were just talking about that are fighting against oppressive systems. And it's an eight book culmination of like the good guys won out, but it was fucking hard, but we did it. I wrote this song in the midst of those two events happening.

and it is one of my favorite songs I've ever written. I've never shown it to anybody because part of me is like, I love it so much that you don't want to hear somebody tell you that they don't like it or that like they like it, but yes, exactly. I have a few of those too. I totally understand. And I love this song so much. Um, but it took me a couple, like I had written probably

three fully finished versions of that song, but I was like, no, that doesn't. I love this bit of the pre-chorus but it doesn't fit with the rest of it and the rest of it is not this really specific emotion that I'm trying to convey about how these two events that are intersecting are making me feel right now um and it took me probably a good like week and a half to finally like working on that song every day for it to be like this is one of my favorite songs I've ever written and I did

not write that song in 20 minutes I have songs that I've written in 20 minutes and one of them's great most of the songs i've written in 20 minutes terrible yeah i mean there's there are songs that i have spit out in the recording booth that i literally it was a first verse and chorus and i was like oh that's actually halfway decent yeah well you kind of spit it out and you're like wait a second i am a writer go me hell yeah hell yeah i know what i'm doing yeah like damn yeah i

can do that but then there's those other sessions where Jake and I will get two words down and four hours and you're sitting there like am I an idiot pulling my hair out yeah like am I just stupid songwriting is like alchemy and I say that uh no pun intended for the song that I wrote called alchemy uh with the help of a lot of other people but I think you know the the meaning of alchemy is is this like magical thing. Nobody really knows what it's kind of this like dark art.

Nobody knows kind of all the ways that come together to kind of get this magical thing.

finished created product and that's absolutely what songwriting is there's um this awesome documentary called it all starts with a song that really takes you into um and I recommend this to everybody um really takes you into the um the deep um community of the Nashville songwriters and how everybody works together and what the industry is like and at the end they go around and they ask a bunch of like really successful Nashville songwriters like Casey Musgraves and Shane

McAnally and just a bunch of those kinds of guys. And they're like, writing a song is fill in the blank. And all of them have different answers to it. Writing a song is magic. Writing a song is terrifying. Sometimes I write a song every time you sit down to write a song. I think Shane McAnally said this and he said, every time you sit down to write a song, you don't know what

you're doing and you find it along the way. Like you sit down not knowing how to write a song every time you do it and I always feel that too I've been writing songs for almost 10 years of my life at this point and every time I still go in to write with other people I'm scared and I'm nervous yeah yeah well I mean because you're only scared and nervous when you've had those rights that you have the best intention going into it and you know the person and you've talked and you're like

and you know that they're like a good person you like have a friendship with them yeah and you go in and you're like oh this is gonna be great and then you go to start writing and it's like oh this isn't as great and then you think that the other person is gonna think that the reason that the song isn't turning out well is because it's all your fault right right also like a great

song that written by so many people is contributed by all of those people and so then when a song maybe doesn work that also everyone fault and it also everybody success when a song is great right yeah but it yeah you know that feeling it kind of like dang because then you start to feel almost insecure you're like not only does he think that I'm a bad writer but my stomach is growling and now I'm going to do the demo and I can't sing

right right I can't sing yeah and now I am kind of losing my confidence yes because I'm not writing at the caliber that I know that I normally write at and like and so then you start getting in your head and then it's like oh wait oh okay step back hold up take a deep breath hold up um and I had one of those rights where essentially like it was going and then I wasn't and then it was going and then I wasn't and it really just came down to we were in two completely different genres yeah and

we just wanted to see what would happen if we tried and we saw what happened and hey you tried you can't say you didn't try right like definitely tried um and I think and there's other people that you write with and you're like oh my god you have the same brain magic magic but also just because you have a magic collaborator it doesn't mean everything you do together is going to be amazing because like creativity just doesn't work like that right

yeah and I believe that you have to write nine bad songs to get one good one and that is just part of the reason that contributes to this being a hard industry because 90 of the time you are doubting yourself and your capabilities yeah and you have to toe this really fine line of like I ain shit but I am the shit right I have to have a really healthy balance of both of them It a balance of there are a hundred people that are lined up behind me that want the same thing,

but there were a hundred people in front of me when I started. And look where we're at now. So I got somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. I got somewhere. Yeah, totally. And creativity is magical and it's hard. Um, but I think it is a very noble thing that we have decided to do. And any person who is creative, you're magic. And don't forget that. I have like most of the week I'm always saying to myself like, oh, well this person's having this happen to them and that's great for them. And

oh, well I'm not singing at this bar that I want to be singing at. But then my singing teacher, when I was 15, told me that I'm going to be a great singer by 25. So, okay. And then this,

and then I'm always doubting myself. And then I have approximately one hour out of every week that I'm like Ainsley you know what you're doing you're actually okay at this there's and I'm gonna say this and not to detriment anybody but sometimes I do need to remind myself just to get outside and talk to people yeah because you then you start to realize like no you actually kind of do know your shit yeah like there there's not this sense of like oh I'm better than you it's just the sense

of no I'm not I'm not insecure yeah like I don't I don't think that I'm better than you but I also know that I'm educated yeah like we can have this conversation and I feel like it's equitable yeah because we're we know the same information yeah but in this room five years ago I wouldn't yeah

and so I would be in a completely different position to you and that growth and if you And realizing that is part of like okay i may not be in the place where i think i should be but i am definitely further than i was five years ago absolutely but unless you give yourself opportunities to show that to yourself you'll never know absolutely there will be times where i have not seen anybody involved in music or like two weeks and I'm down in the dumps because I'm like I haven't released a song I

don't have any social media out posts right now like I need to be doing x y and z and then I'll go to uh like an event where you're networking and then I'll be answering questions yeah and it's kind of like a okay you know yourself you know what you're doing you have an education it's always there it's always going to be there for you to call upon it like your magic your magic powers yes like like you you have it girl yeah just fake it till you make it yeah absolutely you got it but

and that's a message to everybody truly fake it till you make it yeah absolutely well I think this

has been I've just been thinking this the whole time that we've been talking we need to wrap this up because Katie's got to go. But I've been thinking the whole time, like we haven't recorded in so long that I feel like this has been a great episode. We really didn't even plan this out. We were just like, let's just chat and go. And we normally do. We normally have like a whole layout. So you're welcome. You're welcome, everybody. We hope that you missed us because we missed you.

And just a little bit. Yeah. So we're back for season two. After this, we'll be putting out regular episodes again. So make sure to tune in for those. But until next time, I'm your host, Dainsley. And I'm your host Katie. And this has been The Snap. All right team we'll see you later.